Your scariest experiences in a game

[Frindis]

Scary is in the eye of the beholder, so I would like to hear what are some of you guys' and gals' scariest experiences.

Mine is playing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Everything with that game is just..creepy and scary! I'm trying my absolute best to get further than the start (after you unlock the entrance to the mansion) but I just can't! I think I have just scared myself too much, to the point of me never being able to finish that game. It reminds me of when you tell a scary horror story, but you also get scared yourself while telling it.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I thought a bit about it, and oddly enough, I could only remember a game that I didn't even think of in the "What are your favorite horror games?" thread.

It was a combination of very dark lighting, a cave, and swarms of creatures coming from all angles, including on the walls and ceiling. The creatures were Xenomorphs, the game, Aliens vs Predator 2010. I've yet to beat the game on the hardest difficulty, because I kept getting killed in that part.

I can usually handle the biggest and ugliest of enemies in horror games, even very fast ones, like the Verdugo in RE4. Swarms of crawlies that are hard to see coming though, are not to my liking. I might have to go back and try that game again, I'd love to see a remaster of it.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'd love to see a remaster of it

Probably won't happen, since it's full of bugs

 

[Johnway]

There's a couple of moments that left my slightly unnerved. Most of them when i was a kid:

hang man on the amstrad. When you lost unsurprisingly the guy gets hanged, The victim has a frown on his face, the face turned blue and there was some horrible high beeping. As a 4 year old it was unnerving. Never played it again.

Shadow of the beast 2 on the amiga - That intro was seriously scary stuff. The wizard turning into that giant bat, ripping the mother from the house and flying away. Plus it was all the thunder and lightning. Also it was a nerve wracking wait for us because the game didn't always work on our amiga. if you were lucky it would play. if you were unlucky. The red and black screen of death.

system shock 2 probably made me much braver. All those spiders.... In the end i've become immune to game spiders. Real life ones? Well...



there are a couple more. if i remember any more...

 

[Brian Boru]

I don't play horror or survival, so pretty mild stuff compared to your experiences.

The head crabs in Half Life 2 were obnoxious little buggers, definitely gave me the willies when they latched on—especially if they dropped from the ceiling without warning.

I went into Far Cry 3 not knowing much about it, so the first time I got knocked on my back and a giant hungry tiger's face filled the screen… kinda like the famous jump scare scene in Jaws.

Yeah, nothing to see here, carry on

 

[Zloth]

system shock 2 probably made me much braver. All those spiders....

Spiders? The friggin' monkeys, man! "Awww, look at those monkeys... looks like they were getting experimented on and now they are free. At least something good came of this OH MY GOD! RUUUUNNN!!!!"

 

[ZedClampet]

(TLDR: I played a hobbyist horror game that did sound so well that I had to remove my headphones to finish it)

So, I've literally played hundreds of horror games if you include all the free ones on itch and other places, and I almost never get scared, though jumpscares can still wear me out.

Anyway, there was a hobbyist game (because I've played hundreds of them, I can't think of the name and have no idea where I even found the game) that really unnerved me to the point that I had to change the way I was playing it. I'm not sure I've ever done that in a horror game before. It was all psychological. The game starts slow with you arriving at a house in the boonies that you have just purchased. You wander around the house and look at all the creepy/spooky things, which really aren't that bad. The game gives you three chores to do and tells you when you are done to lock the front door, which will advance you to the next night.

So the first day I do the chores and lock the door. The second night starts, and the ambient sounds begin. It's as if the world has sped up a little. I start to do my chores, and the horror picks up a little too. There's an old woman in a rocking chair I can only see if I look from a certain angle. There seems to be blood streaked across the floor in the bedroom, and you can barely hear a woman whimpering. I'm done with my chores and lock the door.

The next night begins and the ambient sounds speed up and get louder. It's beginning to feel more hectic. Everything in the house gets worse. The whimpering is louder, and now I can hear crying coming from somewhere. The night ends in a jumpscare that gets my heart racing. I lock the door.

The next night and the ambient sounds are having an impact on my mental well-being. They are loud and rhythmic and fast. Everything has gone to hell. A jumpscare gets me right away. The bedroom is the last place I want to go. The whimpering and crying are almost unbearable. Somehow I finish the chores and lock the door.

The next night begins and the ambient sounds represent absolute insanity. They are loud, fast and overwhelming. I start to panic before anything else happens. My emotional well-being is being seriously challenged. The woman in the rocking chair stands and disappears while laughing insanely. I can hear the whimpering and the crying, too, and I'm nowhere near the bedroom. My first chore has me going there. I'm not going to do that with this noise. I take my headphones off, calm down, and go to the bedroom where the game ends.

Sound is grossly underutilized in horror games. This game pretty much broke me with it.

 

[Pifanjr]

Most of them when i was a kid

This just reminded me of a video game we had when I was a child. It took a bit of Googling to find the name: Heart of Darkness. I don't think I ever got past the first few screens.

 

[Brian Boru]

<off-topic>

Heart of Darkness

A wonderful book of the same name—but not related to your game—by a wonderful author Joseph Conrad. Highly recommended if the subject matter interests.
</off-topic>

 

[Frag Maniac]

Probably won't happen, since it's full of bugs

And published by Sega, whom have a track record of abandoning their projects.

 

[Johnway]

Spiders? The friggin' monkeys, man! "Awww, look at those monkeys... looks like they were getting experimented on and now they are free. At least something good came of this OH MY GOD! RUUUUNNN!!!!"

Mercifully the monkeys weren't much of a problem. They were loud and easily detectable. My strategy was to attract their attention, lure them close and when they rounded a corner or opened the door, i would cave their skulls in with the wrench. oh and eat their snacks and steal their brains whilst crouching over their broken bodies as an act of dominance. The ones in the recreation deck monkeys were a serious threat as they lobbed projected pyrokinesis. It was like giving a monkey a psychic rocket launcher.

The Spiders were fast, poisonous and too a lot of damage. They did get a bit lazy making it the staple monster unit near the end and the worm launcher made them easy prey. But going through operations floor was a nightmare.

 

[Zloth]

The ones in the recreation deck monkeys were a serious threat as they lobbed projected pyrokinesis. It was like giving a monkey a psychic rocket launcher.

Oh! Those are the only ones I remember! (It's been... quite some time. I do still remember the sound of them chattering, though. It still gives me chills, too.)

I wonder - has any game taken the sound effects from once-feared monsters and stuck them in to a modern game? Maybe a speaker with a bit of a short circuit would make the sound of those monkeys, a creaky pipe could make the same sound as Morrowind's cliff racer - stuff like that. I could see things like that pushing my panic levels up a lot without me understanding why!